


I Know Places

by whatdoicallthis



Series: Romanogers Multi-Chapters [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29993382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoicallthis/pseuds/whatdoicallthis
Summary: Sometime over the course of almost two years since they were paired together, Steve and Natasha realized they fell for each other. Hard.Follow Steve and Natasha through Captain America: the Winter Soldier and onwards as they experience love, heartbreak, and friendship on their way to each other.Yes, I know the summary was cheesy. That was on purpose. :) Starts in CATWS and goes on from there.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Series: Romanogers Multi-Chapters [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812136
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	I Know Places

**Author's Note:**

> This starts as mostly a retelling of the movie, but it will move onto canon divergence soon, don't worry!

“On your left.”

Steve jogged — it would be a sprint to an average person — around the National Mall and past a man in a gray sweatshirt who was struggling to keep up. A minute later, Steve passed him again.

“On your left,” he said.

“Uh-huh. On my left,” the man snapped back. “Got it.”

Another minute passed, and Steve passed him once again.

“Don’t say it,” he said. “Don’t you say it!”

“On your left.”

“Come on!”

Several more minutes passed of the stranger trying to keep up with him when Steve eventually saw him tap out and sit under a tree. At that point, the sun had completely risen, and Steve jogged over to him. The man was panting heavily, his sleeves rolled up and sweat decorating his sweatshirt.

“Need a medic?” Steve teased. The man laughed.

“I need a new set of lungs. Dude, you just ran, like, thirteen miles in thirty minutes.”

“I guess I got a late start.”

“Oh, really? You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap,” the man joked. “Did you just take it? I assume you just took it.”

“What unit you with?” Steve asked, nodding towards the military insignia on Sam’s sweatshirt.

“Fifty-eight, Pararescue, but now I’m working down at the VA,” he answered, holding out his hand to shake. “Sam Wilson.”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve said, using Sam’s hand to pull him up to his feet.

“Yeah, I kind of put that together,” Sam grunted out. “Must have freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing.”

“It takes some getting used to,” Steve agreed, turning to leave. “It’s good to meet you, Sam.”

“It’s your bed, right?”

“What?”

“Your bed. It’s too soft,” Sam elaborated. “When I was over there, I’d sleep on the ground and use rock for pillows like a caveman. Now I’m home, lying in my bed, and it’s like—”

“Lying on a marshmallow,” Steve finished. “Feel like I’m gonna sink right to the floor.” Sam smiled and nodded in agreement. “How long?”

“Two tours,” he answered. “You must miss the good old days, huh?”

“Well, things aren’t so bad. Food’s a lot better; we used to boil everything. No polio’s good. Internet. So helpful. Been reading that a lot trying to catch up.”

“Marvin Gaye, 1972,  _ Trouble Man _ soundtrack,” Sam suggested. “Everything you missed jammed into one album.”

“I’ll put it on the list,” Steve said, pulling a small notebook and pencil out of his pocket and scribbling down “Troubleman (Soundtrack).” His phone beeped, and he pulled it out to see a message.

_ MISSION ALERT. _

_ EXTRACTION IMMINENT. _

_ MEET AT THE CURB. :) _

Steve smiled. He knew exactly who had sent him the message, even if it didn’t show her name. No one else put smiley faces in their mission alerts.

“Well, Sam, duty calls. Thanks for the run, if that’s what you wanna call running,” Steve teased. He forced down the blush that started creeping up at the thought of  _ her _ coming to pick him up and held out his hand for Sam to shake once again.

“Oh, that’s how it is?”

“Oh, that’s how it is.”

Sam laughed and said, “Okay. Any time you wanna stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Okay.”

A sleek black Corvette Stingray drove up and parked at the curb. The window rolled down to reveal Natasha Romanoff sitting in the driver’s seat. She was wearing a black leather jacket, and her hair was straightened and parted down the middle. Steve’s heart fluttered.

“Hey, fellas,” she greeted. “Either one of you know where the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil.”

“That’s hilarious,” Steve deadpanned, strolling up to the side of the car and getting in the passenger seat.

“How you doing?” Sam flirted, earning a small glare from Steve.

“Hey.”

“Can’t run everywhere,” Steve piped up.

“No, you can’t,” Sam agreed, and Natasha drove them away.

* * *

Steve and Natasha were assigned a mission to take down pirates that had infiltrated a SHIELD vessel and rescue any hostages that were taken in.

“The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: the Lemurian Star,” Brock Rumlow explained, showing the team corresponding images on a screen. “They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them ninety-three minutes ago.”

“Any demands?” Steve asked.

“A billion and a half.”

“Why so steep?”

“Because it’s SHIELD’s.”

“So it’s not off-course; it’s trespassing,” Steve concluded scathingly.

“I’m sure they have a good reason,” Natasha chimed in. Steve turned to her.

“You know, I’m getting a little tired of being Fury’s janitor.”

“Relax,” she drawled. “It’s not that complicated.” Steve sighed and turned his attention back to Rumlow.

“How many pirates?” he asked.

“Twenty-five, top mercs, led by this guy. Georges Batroc,” Rumlow answered, pulling up a picture of him on the monitor. “Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He’s at the top of Interpol’s Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy’s got a rep for maximum casualties.”

“Hostages?”

“Uh…mostly techs. One officer: Jasper Sitwell. They’re in the gallery.”

“What’s Sitwell doing on a launch ship?” Steve muttered to himself. “Alright, I’m gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you’ll kill the engines and wait for instructions. Rumlow, you sweep the aft, find the hostages, get them to the life-pods, get ‘em out. Let’s move.”

“STRIKE, you heard the Cap,” Rumlow ordered. “Gear up.”

“Secure channel seven,” Steve said into the comm on his wrist several minutes later, once everyone was geared up and they neared the vessel.

“Seven secure,” Natasha answered. “You do anything fun Saturday night?”

“Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so no, not really,” Steve said sarcastically. Natasha rolled her eyes.

“Coming up by the drop zone, Cap,” the pilot’s voice said over the intercom. Steve pressed a button to open the door.

“You know, if you ask Kristen out from Statistics, she’d probably say yes.”

“That’s why I don’t ask,” Steve said, strapping on his helmet and stepping onto the platform. He attached his shield to his back.

“Too shy or too scared?”

“Too busy!” was the last thing he said before stepping off and jumping out of the plane.

“Was he wearing a parachute?” one of the STRIKE agents asked.

“No,” Rumlow answered. “No, he wasn’t.”

* * *

Steve was pissed. He marched into Fury’s office with an angry look on his face and a mission. He still remembered the fight he had with Natasha on the Lemurian Star, word-for-word.

_ “Well, this is awkward,” Natasha said, redirecting Steve’s attention from the unconscious Batroc under him to her standing at a computer. _

_ “What are you doing here?” _

_ “Backing up the hard drive. It’s a good habit to get into.” _

_ “Rumlow needed your help,” Steve said, getting up and advancing over to her. “What the hell are you doing here?” He glanced at the computer screen. “You’re saving SHIELD intel.” _

_ “Whatever I can get my hands on.” _

_ “Our mission is to rescue hostages.” _

_ “No, that’s your mission,” Natasha argued calmly, pulling the flash drive out of the computer. “And you’ve done it beautifully.” _

_ Steve grabbed her arm to prevent her from walking away. _

_ “You just jeopardized this whole operation.” _

_ “I think that’s overstating things.” _

_ Suddenly, Batroc regained consciousness and threw a grenade towards them. Steve hit it away from them using his shield, and grabbed Natasha by the waist and held her like a sack of potatoes. Natasha shot out the window of the adjacent office, and they jumped through just as the bomb went off. _

_ “Okay,” she conceded, “that one’s on me.” _

_ “You’re damn right,” he said, getting off the ground and stomping away. _

Steve shook his head. Maybe he was a little too harsh on her. It wasn’t her fault Fury had given her a separate mission.

“You just can’t stop yourself from lying, can’t you?” Steve growled at the man in question.

“I didn’t lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours,” Fury argued back.

“Which you didn’t feel obliged to share.”

“I’m not obliged to do anything,” Fury defended.

“Those hostages could have died, Nick.”

“I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“Soldiers trust each other. That’s what makes it an army,” Steve said. “Not a bunch of guys running around and shooting guns.”

“Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye,” Fury admitted gruffly. Steve was silent. “Look, I didn’t want you to do anything you weren’t comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with  _ everything _ .”

Everything. Steve vaguely wondered exactly how much “everything” encompassed.

“I can’t lead a mission when the people I’m leading have missions of their own.”

“It’s called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all.”

“Except you,” Steve bitterly pointed out.

There was a small pause before Fury said, “You’re wrong about me. I do share. I’m nice like that.”

* * *

Steve stepped through the doors of the nursing home, his mind reeling. He was still processing Project Insight, and he had come straight from the Smithsonian exhibit about his life.

They had a whole section dedicated to Bucky. Peggy was in the video they played there, too.

He found Peggy lying in bed. She looked…terrible, to put it bluntly. Nothing like the Peggy he remembered. However, once he got a good look into her eyes, he felt like he was back in 1945.

“You should be proud of yourself, Peggy,” Steve said, glancing around at the pictures on her bedside table.

“Mm,” she acknowledged. “I have lived a life. My only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.” Steve was silent for a moment, thinking about everything that could have been if he hadn’t lost Bucky and crashed into the ice months later. “What is it?”

“For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right. I guess I’m not quite sure what that is anymore,” he said. “And I thought I could throw myself back in and follow orders, serve. It’s just not the same.”

Peggy chuckled.

“You’re always so dramatic,” she said. “Look, you saved the world. We rather…mucked it up.”

“You didn’t,” Steve reassured her. “Knowing that you helped found SHIELD is half the reason I stay.”

“Hey,” Peggy said, taking Steve’s hand. “The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do is to start over.”

Peggy started coughing, and Steve turned to grab her a glass of water. He held it out to her as she blinked.

“Peggy…”

“Steve?” Peggy asked, recognition flashing across her features.

“Yeah?”

“You’re alive!” she cried. “You…you came back! It’s been so long. So long.”

“Well, I couldn’t leave my best girl,” Steve said sadly. “Not when she owes me a dance.”


End file.
